Reviewing Covid-era road/cycle changes in Ipswich

In this age of social distancing, towns and cities all across Europe are making changes to their local roads to help encourage active travel such as walking and cycling - makes sense, given that the roads will simply clog up with congestion even worse than in normal times if more people are driving, as well as all the savings to the NHS when people exercise more (especially within the context of obesity-related health conditions). 

Suffolk Highways has made a small number of changes to the roads around Ipswich, with several more planned ^[PDF], but how useful are they in practice? I went cycling around them to find out. 

Ipswich Waterfront

Less space than in April/May, but still better than in the before-time. 

The shared-space byway along the waterfront was never particularly busy with car traffic anyway, but for a while during the height of the Covid-19 lockdown it was completely closed off to motorised vehicles to maximise space for walking and cycling. 

It's now had a slight opening-up, but with minor changes to try and maximise space for pedestrians by replacing parking spaces with pedestrian space. Though it's now once again open to motor traffic, it's still a bit better than what came before even if the before-case wasn't that bad to begin with. 

Rating: 6/10

Milner Street / Rope Walk

The planters were only installed in the last few days, replacing a messy pile of signs and roadworks-dividers. 

National Cycle Route 1 (NCN1) passes through Ipswich and forms a very useful commuter route between the town centre and the hospital (and onward to Kesgrave and Martlesham Heath) on quiet roads, but even so cycling is still often an afterthought for road planners. It passes through the section of Rope Walk in front of Suffolk New College that has long been a dedicated walking/cycling route, but the cycle path runs out before NCN1 turns onto Milner Street. 

This turning has now been closed to motor traffic by placing planters in the roads. The planters have only been installed in the last few days as I write this - for weeks, this had been a jumble of temporary signs and roadworks-dividers. By closing off this through route, the local roads now only serve quiet residential traffic and can now form a safer route for cycling between the town centre and the employment centres to the east of the town. 

Rating: 7/10

Wellesley Road bridge

Railway bridge carrying NCN1

Following eastward from the Milner Road closure, this narrow bridge carries NCN1 over the Ipswich-Felixstowe railway. It was already one-way to motor traffic, but has now been completely allocated to walking and cycling in both directions. 

It's a good improvement to what came before, as the original pavement and contraflow cycle lane are both very narrow. This closure now gives much more space for walking and cycling and also makes a bit more of NCN1 completely traffic-free. But it still doesn't solve how eastbound cyclists have to exit the bridge and join Marlborough Road blind because of the lack of a sightline onto Weymouth Road unless they come to almost a complete stop on the bridge - while this closure is helpful, it probably would have been more useful to close off the corner between Marlborough Road and Weymouth Road here as well. 

Rating: 7/10

Fuchsia Lane bridge

Fuchsia Lane bridge, west: going in either direction means passing through the same narrow opening on the right. 

Fuchsia Lane has a very similar bridge to the one on Wellesley Road and goes over the same bit of railway. Despite this, the closure here on the western side of the bridge has been done particularly poorly: though the bridge has been closed to motor traffic, the placement of the planter and temporary signs force cyclists and pedestrians into the same choke point on the right hand side. It forces bikes and pedestrians to give way to each other in a way that's annoying for both. 

It's not even a difficult thing to get right - the eastern side of this same bridge (below) provides enough space either side of the planter so that cyclists can pass comfortably in both directions, and it's also been placed slightly further away from the bridge itself so that there's now far more room for both cyclists and pedestrians without inconveniencing either. 

Fuchsia Lane bridge, east: cyclists can pass in either direction, while pedestrians have enough space to walk through without conflicting with cyclists. 

The western side is at least an easy problem to fix: moving the cones and the temporary signs from the left hand side into the middle would largely solve the problem. 

Rating: 4/10

Britannia Road / Freehold Road / Newbury Road crossroads

After: New road layout in favour of an important cycling route: the original STOP road markings are still visible, while the Give Way lines on the left and right are new. 

NCN1 runs east-west through the suburb of California suburb, but until recently the route involved a crossroads where the north-south rat-run of Britannia Road had priority while the east-west cycle route was broken up by stop signs. 

This has now changed: the east-west route along Freehold Road and Newbury Road now has priority, while Britannia Road now crosses this route with Give Way lines. It's a simple change that only needed a bit of paint in the road, but it's a significant improvement to the route between the town centre and the hospital, as well as onward to Kesgrave and Martlesham Heath. It's only let down by the poor maintenance of the road surface on Newbury Road on the far side of the crossroads. 

Rating: 8/10

Portman Road / Princes Street

Portman Road closure, at the junction with Princes Street. It's sometimes blocked off for match days already, so this makes it a bit more permanent. 

This is a more recent closure, only starting from the 25th June. Its usefulness depends on the section of the road north of Handford Road being closed as planned, though this hasn't yet been done. 

The road in front of Ipswich Town Football Club has now been closed to motorised through traffic at the junction with Princes Street, on a route that has potential for those cycling to the rail station. There are some further plans to close off Portman Road north of the Handford Road junction as well, which would make both portions of the road into a completely through-traffic-free route from the north of the town into the railway station, without having to brave the terror of the Civic Drive 4-lane-urban-highway. 

For now, this southern section already makes cycling into the town centre from the west via Elm Street or from the north into the rail station a bit more pleasant and gives a quieter route for pedestrians along this walking shortcut to the station. While it does already have some benefit, it relies on the northern section closure plan being implemented to have much more of a use as a traffic-free route. 

Rating: 6/10

Concluding thoughts

The better-planned road changes in favour of walking and cycling are already having a positive effect, where I saw noticeably more people than usual now using the Milner Street route and where the Britannia Road crossroads are now much more pleasant to cycle through. These kinds of changes become much more useful when combined together: the Milner Street, Wellesley Road and Britannia Road changes join together to form a much safer and more pleasant commuter cycling route from the town into the hospital. This is a significant improvement in an age where congestion is only going to get worse as long as public transport use is discouraged, in this medieval town street layout where there's never going to be enough space for cars. 

However, the Fuchsia Lane and Portman Road closures remain isolated and with little through-route purpose until the other road changes planned by Suffolk Highways are implemented. Indeed, the Fuchsia Lane closure has been done particularly poorly given the obstructive placing of its temporary signs. The website does also list a road closure on Bridge Street just in front of Stoke Bridge that was supposed to have already happened, though when I went through there on the same evening as the closure date nothing had yet been done. 

The overall benefit to walking routes is far more in creating more pleasant streets to walk through than in any social distancing benefit, especially as the infection risk of spending one second passing someone outdoors was minimal to begin with. The two bridges over the Ipswich-Felixstowe railway could well become much more useful walking/cycling routes now that they have been closed to motor traffic, though it's a shame that the Waterfront road closure has now been reversed. While the usefulness of the Portman Road closure is limited for cyclists as the northern section of the road hasn't yet been closed, it does now already form a much more pleasant walking route from the north-west of the town into the rail station than walking next to the fast traffic on Civic Drive. 

Overall, these are still relatively few and small changes to traffic segregation in the town. Walking and cycling through the town's empty streets was amazingly more pleasant in April and May when traffic levels were low, but as the town gradually reopens much of the traffic has now returned and the roundabouts are now annoying to walk or cycle around again: 3 mph pedestrians, 10 mph cyclists and 30mph cars will never mix well. In the longer term, the benefit of these changes relies heavily on whether the remaining planned changes are carried out in a joined-up way that allows traffic-free through journeys for pedestrians and cyclists properly segregated from the roads as well as from each other, like what the Cycle Superhighways did in London to great benefit for all. 

It's up to the county council to decide whether it wants this to happen.